


Budget Cuts

by DastardlySonya



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Captain Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin), Commander Erwin Smith, Gen, Give Erwin Smith a break 2k17, Hange Zoë's Experiments, Hange doesn't care, Scientist Hange Zoë, The Survey Corps is hella broke, survey corps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-01-27 19:27:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12588932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DastardlySonya/pseuds/DastardlySonya
Summary: Even though everyone knows the Survey Corps has no money, Hange asks Erwin for money.  A lot of it.  And when he tells her no, she resolves to find a way to make him change his mind, even if it means she has to read several hundred pages of expense reports to do so.





	1. Budget Cuts

Budget Cuts

 

            Hange rapped on the door once, twice, many times and waited. The plate on the door, made to look like gold but actually a cheap coat of paint over regular wood, hung slightly crooked. She prodded it, overcorrecting, then repeated the process the other way.

            She was considering knocking again, even more raucously perhaps, when she was bidden to enter. She left the nameplate hanging even more crooked than when she found it, and let herself inside.  

            Erwin didn’t look up, focus trained on what Hange knew was an expense request. Specifically her expense request. She could tell by the dark tea stain on the upper corner, and also by the fact that she was the only member for the Corps ballsy enough to submit any such request. The Survey Corps was broke, everyone knew. It had never been a secret.

            She just didn’t see why that should affect her.

            Eyes still glued to the page, Erwin gestured for her to take a seat across the desk from him. It was a big desk, probably worth a lot of money at one point. But now, as with almost everything around the place, including soldiers, it was dinged and scraped and missing a few bits. Because the Corps was broke. As previously mentioned.

            “Hange,” Erwin said, breaking the silence, “explain to me what I’m looking at.”

            The silence had been starting to eat away at her. “It’s an expense request. For”–

            “For two hundred and fifty thousand square meters of canvas sheeting,” Erwin finished. “Yes I can see that.” He finally lowered the paper, and she could see the frown plowing across his forehead.

            “I had a less literal answer in mind,” he said. “What makes you think that I can approve this? That I would _want_ to approve this? The only argument you made to justify your request was just ‘science’ written at the bottom of the page.”

            “Well,” she said in what she hoped was a diplomatic tone, “it is for science.”

            “And _it_ is two hundred and fifty thousand square meters of canvas sheeting. Hange, do you have any idea how much a single _yard_ of canvas sheeting is going for at market these days?”

            Best to dodge that question. “I actually think that you may have misread the report,” Hange said, craning her neck to peer at the page. “Because you keep saying two hundred and fifty thousand square meters of canvas sheeting”–

            “Did I miss a decimal point?” Erwin asked, looking relieved and back at the paper. A quick scan of the document and the frown returned even larger than before.

            “This says you’re requesting the noted amount… in duplicate.”

            Hange nodded.

            “So, really, you want”–

            “Five hundred thousand square meters of canvas sheeting.”

            Erwin let the paper go, and it fluttered down to the cluttered desktop. He seemed to stare straight through her for a moment before regaining his composure with a grimace.

            “Hange, I’m not buying you _any_ canvas sheeting,” he said. “There’s hardly room in the budget to support beans for the new recruits, much less this exorbitant amount to spend on two hundred and- five hundred thousand square meters of canvas sheeting.”

            She watched, carefully silent, as his left eyebrow twitched once, twice. He pinched the bridge of his nose and looked away, and she breathed out. She wasn’t tactful, not delicate, but she could have a damn good sense of self-preservation. Now was one of the times it came in most handy.

            “So…” she said carefully, really hoping Erwin would cave or at least let her leave the office alive. She squirmed in her seat as his gaze threatened to skewer her once again. “That’s a no then?”

            “ _You’re goddamn right that’s a no, Squad Leader_.”

            “What if the recruits just got bread, how about that?”

            “What if we just all killed ourselves before we gave the titans a chance? That’d save money too, wouldn’t it?”

            “Or, or, we could buy less tea?” Hange supplied hopefully. She risked a smile.

            Erwin had his head in his hands at this point, elbow resting on the desk, hands gripping his usually perfectly kept hair. “I’m more afraid of what Levi would do if I slashed his tea budget than what you’ll do if I refuse your request. So, no, again.” As if sensing her intention to continue peppering him with suggestions, he shoved a thick file towards her.

            “I’ll tell you what. If it’s _that_ important to you, and you really can’t wrap your head around how tight I’m telling you our funds already are, you’re welcome to look at the numbers yourself. If you find something we can cut, so much the better. Lord knows we could use it.”

            Hange eyed the file. Large wasn’t an adequate description. Extensive, or maybe nebulous was a better word. But she’d seen worse. Hell, she’d made worse.

            “And then I get my five hundred thousand square meters of canvas sheeting?”

            “And then you maybe get part of your five hundred thousand square meters of canvas sheeting, if there isn’t some other more pressing thing to do with the money. Then I’d consider it.”

            “Alright,” Hange said. Who was she kidding, she’d already made her decision when the offer was first made. “I’ll get Mike to help me.”

            “You can have Moblit,” Erwin said. “I already have Mike assigned for today.”

            “Fine.” She stood up quickly, knocking her chair over backwards. Erwin’s shoulders may have slumped ever so slightly as she bent over to stand it back up and slammed her head into his desk. She yelped, staggered, and pushed the chair in harder than necessary, whacking Erwin in the shins. His eyes watered, but he otherwise didn’t react.

            Without missing more than a beat, Hange grabbed the budget file and made it to the door. “The next time I see you, I’ll have the solution to _all_ your budget woes!” she declared.

            Erwin waited until he heard her finish clattering down the stairs before he reached for the flask in his bottom drawer.

 

            Hange wailed, uncurling her spine from the hunched position she’d taken on the medical cot just across from the bay window. She stretched, and moaned again, but when she looked down the numbers on the page still hadn’t changed. She let out a muffled scream.

            “From all the noise you’d think you were in here for a reason,” Nanaba said from across the room. She was standing in front of an open cabinet, inspecting the contents.

“Actually, I take that back. You’re making more noise than any of my regulars.”

            Hange let her shoulders hunch forward again, later discomfort be damned. She pointed to the far side of the room. “What about that guy? He was pretty loud earlier. Made it damn hard to concentrate.”

            “Well, he’s dead now, so I feel like he was entitled,” Nanaba said. She made a checkmark on her clipboard and closed the cabinet. “And making this a perfect place for you to study isn’t on my radar of priorities.”

            Again, Hange tore her eyes away from the columns of numbers. “What happened to roommate loyalty?” she complained.

            “What happened to your lab space in the back courtyard?” Nanaba countered.

            The door to medical opened, and Moblit returned from the tea run Hange had sent him on. He had three cups hooked onto the fingers of one hand and a full kettle in the other.

            “She flooded it last week, and the MP’s can’t say if it’s structurally sound until it all dries out,” he said. He placed the tea set on a bedside surgical tray and rolled it across the room. He paused at the foot of one occupied bed. After a moment, he raised an eyebrow at Nanaba.

            “He’s sleeping,” she said. “Don’t get all superstitious on me.”

            Hange held out a hand for tea without looking up. “You told me he was dead just a minute ago,” she said. Moblit filled a cup with hot water, looped the string of a tea bag around the handle and placed it in Hange’s hand. She took a sip and set it on the nightstand next to the cot she’d taken over.

            “Yeah, well.” Nanaba shrugged. “I was making a point.”

            Hange flipped to the next page of the budget and winced. Erwin was right- they were really, really broke. More broke than she had considered. She’d always thought he was just stingy, a penny pincher. But nope- stone cold broke.

            She sighed, flipped again. “Nanaba, what’s medical’s budget this year?”

            “After I put in for replacement supplies? Negative numbers,” Nanaba said. “And before you ask, don’t you dare cut what little I have. I know your science could potentially save lives, but this kind already does and we can’t compromise that until yours is proven.”

            “I hate when you make sense,” Hange muttered. She reached out for her tea.

            “Um, Squad Leader?”

            “Hm?” Hange glanced to Moblit as she took a sip of tea. It had gone cold awfully fast.

            “Uhhh…”

            It was Nanaba who gave a coherent answer. “You just drank horse piss.”

            Hange immediately spit what was in her mouth, sending Moblit jumping out of the way and spraying a fine mist over Erwin’s papers. She gagged, and spit on the floor.

            “Why do you have horse piss in medical?” she squawked.

            “I don’t!” Nanaba shouted back. The patient sleeping in the corner snorted and rolled over, but didn’t wake. Nanaba made a point of lowering her voice. “At least I didn’t until you brought that up here with you!”

            Hange looked to Moblit for confirmation, and he nodded. “You’ve been carrying it around all day.”

            Hange looked at the beaker, puzzled, and exchanged it for her actual teacup. She spat once more, and took a sip. Much better.

            “I wonder why,” she said, bemused, and turned back to her now dampened papers.

           

 

            Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, Hange hit pay dirt. She let out a whoop at her success, and then clapped a hand over her mouth. Moblit had fallen asleep in his chair hours ago, his part of the budget file now used as a pillow, and Nanaba’s patient was still sleeping off whatever trauma he’d been exposed to. She allowed herself a single, smaller squeal of glee, then turned back to the front of the budget to start running the numbers.

 

            File reassembled in what passed as order as long as no one tried to actually make any sense of it, Hange strutted proudly across the Survey Corps compound towards the Commander’s office. A few of the cadets stopped dead in their tracks to stare at her, and even some of the older members took a second look. None of that affected the smile on her face, and she made her way through the dining hall, ignoring the silence that fell over the room as soon as she entered, and up the stairs.

            She smacked the door once to announce her arrival, waited just long enough to notice that the nameplate had twisted a full 180 degrees and now hung upside down. Too excited to wait another moment, she burst into the room, accidentally sending the doorknob into the plaster.

            “I’ve done it!” she announced. “The budget, I fixed it!”

            Erwin stared at her, open mouthed. Levi sat in the chair that had been hers yesterday, slouched back and sipping tea with practiced disinterest. After a suitable pause, he analyzed Erwin’s face and turned to see what the fuss was.

            His eyes widened more than Hange had ever seen them go and he spat a mouthful of tea back into his cup.

            “Holy shit, four-eyes, where the fuck are your pants?!”

            “I don’t need them anymore!” Hange said proudly. “I calculate that if we just remove pants from the budget we can not only afford my sheeting, but double the supplies on Nanaba’s list. Double the science!”

            Erwin blinked slowly. “Hange,” he said softly, “Put on your pants or I will court martial you.”

            “No!” she said, cheerfully. “Didn’t you hear what I just said? If we cut pants”–

            “We aren’t cutting pants!” Erwin said, standing. He came around the desk and snatched the file out of her arms. Almost immediately, a different kind of frown came over his face.

            “Why do my documents smell like horse piss?”

            “I don’t know,” Hange said immediately. “Buy I really think you should consider”–

            “Why do you want the sheeting so badly anyway?” Erwin demanded, setting the file down far away from himself.

            At this Hange’s smile showed the first signs of wavering. Her face became fixed, and she said something too softly for Erwin to catch. Levi let out a bark of laughter. Erwin raised an eyebrow at him, but he just gestured back to Hange.

            “I was going to make titan clothes,” she said stiltedly. Erwin’s eyebrows made a break for his hairline, and she almost winced. “I thought, maybe, if they experienced something in common with us they would understand more, or we could at least tell what kind of understanding they do possess in regards to new or human sensations”–

            “Get out,” Erwin said. He pointed to the door. “Get out of my office right now or I swear I will find a new chief science officer.”

            Manic smile still pasted onto her face, Hange spun on one boot heel and walked mechanically out the door. A few steps past the door she hesitated, leaned back inside.

            “I initially considered pants the most economical to cut, but shirts could also have potential”–

            The door slammed in her face, and the little nameplate fell to the ground with a clatter.

 


	2. D.I.Y.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hange Zoe is not one to take no for an answer. After her last idea was shot down by Commander Erwin (no longer buying pants in order to fund scientific research IS perfectly reasonable, no matter what he says) Hange resolves to find a less drastic way to get her money.  
> It doesn't go well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In honor of season three coming out today...  
> Have a slightly haphazard sequel.

Hange Zoe squinted at the top of the medical table, biting her lip. Her expression was one of sheer concentration, so much so that she didn’t notice Moblit sneaking a sip from his flask as she worked. A bead of sweat ran down her face. She didn’t wipe it away. Very delicately, she reached out one hand expectantly.

“Scalpel.”

The blade was placed in her hand. Still sweating, she angled the blade correctly and drew it in a swift, straight line. There was an intake of breath from somewhere over her left shoulder, and she would have told off whoever it was if this weren’t such detailed work. She settled for ignoring them.

Setting the scalpel aside, she once again extended her hand. “Sutures!” This time the item did not instantly appear in her palm, and she snapped her fingers. “Quickly, Moblit, we don’t have time for this!”

Needle and thread were supplied, and Hange quickly threaded the needle. Just as expediently, she ran a line of stitches that, while not neat, were certainly effective in keeping everything in place. She tied off the thread, and let out a huge breath.

“It’s done,” she said softly. A smile crept across her face, and she straightened up. “It’s done!” The white material before her seemed to glow with the pride she felt.  
She whirled around to celebrate with Moblit, only to come face to face with a much larger audience than she had expected. Moblit was not a part of it. She frowned.

“What are you all doing here? Where’s Moblit?”

“He left an hour ago, when you hadn’t even cut the fabric yet” Mike said, standing in the center front row much to the chagrin of everyone trying to see past his bulk. 

“Then who’s been handing me everything?”

“Me,” Nanaba spoke up. She was leaning against the table beside Hange’s workstation. She held up a silver flask, shook it back and forth to prove how little liquid remained inside. “I’m also the one who’s been drinking.”

Hange couldn’t help but feel a bit annoyed. “You don’t seem to be taking this very seriously.”

“We’re not,” a new voice spoke up. The ranks of soldiers parted, revealing Levi leaning in the doorway. 

“Then what are you doing here?” Hange countered.

Levi straightened up. “I’m here to take everyone’s bets. Twenty bucks says Erwin doesn’t let you out the door wearing that. Thirty says you make it out but get grounded the second he gets a sight of… whatever the hell you made now.”

“Aw,” Nanaba said. “That’s too much. Nobody can get in on that.”

“I also accept rations. I’ll hold one week’s tea allowance equivalent to ten dollars. Who’s in?”

There was a mad rush towards Levi as everyone hurried to make their wagers. Hange glared at their backs. 

“You’re wasting your money!” she called to them, even though they clearly weren’t listening. “Erwin’s going to be thanking me, not stopping me!”

There was no reaction, except a small smirk from Levi, so Hange turned back to her worktable. This was going to work. She could feel it in her bones. Now the only thing left was to name her invention. Something striking. But not too outlandish. Simple. 

She lifted her sewing project off the tabletop for one final inspection, and it came to her. 

Shorts. 

 

The expedition left early the next morning without fanfare. People were getting sick of celebrating the Corps as heroes only to watch them straggle back in defeated and diminished. So the usual cheer that went up after the horn blast was absent. The gate went up, and that was that.

Hange had not mounted up with the rest of the Scouts, opting instead to ride in the medical supply cart. This, combined with the way she huddled in her cloak, had earned her more than a few looks, but people were past questioning her eccentricities. 

Except Erwin. He’d given her more of a…glare laced with suspicion and the words don’t you dare.

Hange had brushed it all off. Everyone would come around. Even if this new design did leave her legs a bit chilly in the morning air. She tugged her boots up a little higher, made sure her cloak was properly concealing her invention. She settled in to wait until the moment came to make her grand reveal. 

 

Levi rode beside Erwin at the head of the expedition. Though his expression didn’t show it, he was in a wonderful mood. He’d had three whole cups of tea with his breakfast this morning. Three. And he hadn’t watered any of them down. He was a rich man now, maybe not in currency, but in something better: caffeine. 

And then he glanced back and saw Hange riding in the cart. Hange never rode in the cart. It wasn’t amenable to racing off after abnormal titans against orders while screaming. It was glaringly obvious that she was up to something, and Erwin hadn’t stopped her. And if Erwin didn’t stop her, all those bet’s he’d taken, all that tea…

The word “Forfeit” flashed behind his eyes.

“Erwin,” he said, speaking loud to be heard over the wind. The commander looked over, not slowing his horse. Levi didn’t care- this needed to be said, now. “There’s something you–”

The shout of alarm rang out from the right flank, followed by the pounding noise of approaching titan feet. Erwin’s attention was elsewhere in a split second, and he banked hard, leading the expedition away from the titan.

Levi couldn’t do anything but watch as Hange stood in the cart. Good god he could see her thighs. He had just a second left–

“ERWIN,” he screamed, and the commander’s head whipped around, searching for the danger. 

He had a perfect view as Hange threw off her cloak and revealed the full extent of her bare legs.

“Oh shit,” Levi said, watching Erwin’s face journey from confused to resigned and all the way to livid in just a few seconds.

The commander turned to glare at him, even as he changed trajectory to head directly towards his errant chief science officer. “What fresh hell- Levi did you know about this?”

Levi said nothing, just spurred his horse on ahead, determined to reach Hange before she died of a short-pants induced incident.

 

Cloak discarded, Hange timed her jump from the cart just as it passed a blur of trees. She fired her anchors, was airborne for a glorious, leg-baring moment–

And then she howled out loud as the straps of her maneuver gear cut into her unprotected skin. 

She kept on towards the abnormal though. No pain, no gain. She’d just have to build up calluses, that’s all. It was too soon to quit. 

She loosed another anchor, embedding it in the abnormal’s pectoral. The other she aimed for the scalp. Once again, as she reeled herself in, she felt the leather straps cutting into her skin, and a moment later a warm flow of blood trickling down her leg and into her boot. She ignored it, dodging a massive hand, moving herself to land on the titan’s shoulder. 

She landed hard, movements restricted by the pinching of her gear. One knee buckled as she landed, and she threw out both hands for balance. In doing so, one of her blades broke off short against the titan’s skull. It turned it’s massive head to stare at her, perched atop its shoulder like a bird.

When she tried to move away but found one of her legs unwilling to move, having lost circulation, she was willing to admit she may have made a mistake.

She heard a shout from below, and looked down to see Levi launch off his horse towards the Abnormal. She waved her hands at him to stop.

“Don’t kill him!” she screeched, waving her arms frantically. He blasted past, and she thought she might have caught the words “screw you” on the resulting rush of wind.

A spray of blood, and then she and the abnormal were both falling. Her broken blade flew from one hand, and she fumbled to loose her other anchor from the titan.  
She was hit with a sudden impact, and then she wasn’t falling down so much as sideways, hauled along by an arm around her waist. They sailed towards a tree, making to land on a branch, but overshot, her extra weight throwing off the velocity. So, instead of landing on one branch, they careened past and slammed into the next one before crashing inelegantly to the ground.

The air went whooshing out of Hange’s lungs as she landed hard on her back. She stared at the sky, trying and failing to suck in a breath. She saw a cloud that looked like a carrot. Then one that kind of resembled Mike if she squinted.

She forced herself to roll over. Now she was lying on her stomach. She wasn’t ready to get up yet. 

A few paces away, she saw Erwin doing the same. And oh, was he glaring at her. Painfully, he pushed himself up onto his elbows, then worked his way into a kneeling position. There were leaves in his hair. 

She opened her mouth, she didn’t know to say what, when a pair of boots touched down beside her and Levi strode into view. She had enough sense left to realize this was probably for the best.

“Who’s hurt?” Levi asked sharply, looking from her to Erwin and back again.

Erwin shook his head. “I’m fine. Hange’s bleeding.” He moved to stand, had to make a second try. But he managed. He walked over, limping slightly, and extended a hand to Hange. She took it, and let him help her up.

“You seem to be in one piece, shockingly,” Erwin said. “What do you call those things you’re wearing?”

Hange was shocked speechless. This was not the reaction she’d expected from Erwin. She would have expected anger even if the shorts had worked, but given their magnificent failure… this was not normal. Still, she couldn’t keep herself from feeling a bit of excitement at his interest. Okay, a lot of excitement.

“I call them shorts,” she said eagerly. “I was thinking short pants, but that was dull, don’t you think? And then because they really are small I toyed with calling them short-shorts, but–”

“They look like a fucking diaper,” Levi cut in. She ignored him.

“So shorts it had to be. Easier to remember, descriptive… shorts,” she finished lamely.

Erwin nodded thoughtfully. “Noted. Knowing what they are allows me to tell you in no uncertain terms that if I ever see you wearing those things again, or hear of you making more for other people to wear, I will expel you from the Survey Corps regardless of your past accomplishments here. Do I make myself clear?”

Ah, there was the simmering rage that Hange was coming to find familiar. She nodded immediately- not out of fear, but practicality. The shorts were a failure. There was nothing to be gained by defending them.

“Good,” Erwin said. “You’re suspended from your duties as science officer for three weeks.”

Hange made a noise of protest, but Erwin had already spun on his heel and was marching away. He walked with a slight limp and held a hand to his ribs but didn’t falter and didn’t look back. He reached his horse, hauled himself up, and rode away.

Hange sighed. She looked mournfully to Levi. “Did you at least get all your tea?”

“Yeah, four-eyes, I got the tea.” He jerked his head, indicating that she should follow. “And if you ever pull some shit like this again I’m going to pour all of it, boiling hot, over your most precious notes.”

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel? yes or no?


End file.
